Noblegarden

Noblegarden is World of Warcraft's spring holiday, held around Easter. It was added in patch 1.3 in March 2005, which makes it one of the game's first holidays. In the original game it was a simple, one-day affair: brightly painted eggs appeared around the starting areas of every race, and players of any level searched the bushes, corners and fence posts for them for candy and small prizes. There were no quests, vendors or bosses.

Background

The game's yearly event guide describes Noblegarden as a feast with roots in old druidic festivals, celebrated for a long time by the races of the Alliance and later taken up by those of the Horde. Before the Third War, it was the great spring celebration of the human kingdoms. On the day of the feast, the nobles and lords of each race hide coins, candy and the occasional treasure in eggs painted to look like wildflowers, and scatter them for the common folk to find.

The egg hunt

During Noblegarden, the eggs appeared across the six starting zones of the original races: Elwynn Forest, Dun Morogh and Teldrassil for the Alliance, and Durotar, Mulgore and Tirisfal Glades for the Horde. They hid in the grass, under trees, behind buildings and along the roads. Unlike almost everything else in the game, the hunt was open to anyone: a level 1 character could search as well as a level 60.

Players who remember the first Noblegarden describe it as small: once the eggs in an area had been found, they didn't come back, so the hunt rewarded whoever showed up early.

What the eggs held

Each egg held a small prize, most often candy, and the prizes were aimed at the lowest-level characters, for whom the event was mainly meant. No list of the original eggs' contents survives in the sources we've found. The formal clothing now tied to Noblegarden, the [White Tuxedo Shirt], [Black Tuxedo Pants] and [Elegant Dress], is documented as a holiday reward only from the 2009 rebuild on.

Because the original event lasted a single day and the eggs didn't respawn once taken, the hunt was over quickly in busy starting areas.

Later history

• Patch 3.1 in 2009 rebuilt Noblegarden into a week-long holiday. Eggs were gathered around the starting towns instead of whole zones, and held Noblegarden Chocolate that bought rewards from vendors, including a rabbit pet and formal clothing such as the tuxedo and the Elegant Dress. Achievements and daily quests came with it, and some eggs turned the finder into a rabbit.
• Later versions added the Swift Springstrider and a flying carpet as mounts, and a boss, a furious duck named Daetan Swiftplume.
• Noblegarden later ran in World of Warcraft Classic as well, with eggs in the starting zones.

Sources

• Noblegarden, Warcraft Wiki
• Brightly Colored Egg, Warcraft Wiki (patch 3.1 changes)
• All the in-game holidays that are part of WoW Classic, Blizzard Watch
• Noblegarden, Wowpedia (patch history)
• WoW Classic Noblegarden guide, Wowhead (patch 1.3, the one-day event)